renaissance poisson

come on in, the water's warm. *toothy grin*

because Y2K wasn't enough

of a problem, the new US energy bill changes daylight saving time starting in 2007. yeah, that's what's gonna make good sense, changing a system that's been in place for 18 years, and that is connected to every other country's system. nevermind that i actually think DST is bullshit and if any change should be made to it, it ought to be abolished and companies should be encouraged to offer flex time (since that has a whole lot of other positive side effects), and people should be rewarded for keeping their energy bills low.

whoever came up with this should be tied to an anthill, covered with honey. i wonder if anyone has calculated the approximate worldwide cost for the switch. not like the US would care, really. we ought to boycott their idiocies. but even internally, that's a lot of software and gadgets that'll have to be changed. i almost feel sorry for the airlines.

small saving grace is that apparently as part of the new law, the secretary of energy has nine months after the enactment of the act to report to congress the impact the change in daylight saving time would have on future energy consumption in the us. hello! how about doing studies before signing something into law?

[edit: daylight SAVING time, daylight SAVING time, daylight SAVING time, daylight SAVING time, daylight SAVING time, daylight SAVING time, daylight SAVING time, daylight SAVING time ...]

I am almost tempted to start putting forth conspiracy theories about this being supported by Microsoft as an incentive for people to upgrade from older operating systems that they no longer wish to provide support for. It's particularly convenient how they just dropped support for Windows 2000 about a month ago. And, if this Vista thing comes out before then, they just have to decide to drop support for "non-security-related fixes" in XP a month before the first DST change of 2007, and everybody will have to upgrade or face considerable annoyance.

I'm fairly sure that's unsupportable speculation without any basis in truth, but still -- the effects are about as annoying as if it were truth. Guess I'll just have to switch to Linux by then.

Be careful who you're tying to that anthill. Down here, we've been crushing on Benjamin Franklin for two years now as our favorite Founding Father, and DST was his idea.

Phew, and they fixed the one thing about it that really irked me, which is that it the fall shift was going to be over Thanksgiving weekend. I mean, duh, the day after Thanksgiving everyone goes to the mall at 5:30 and you don't want the sun to rise until 8:30? Dumbasses. Except that they pushed it to only the first weekend in November which means that kids have an extra hour of evening daylight to trick-or-treat.

The problem is, though, that that doesn't really help. Either I keep the computer's idea of GMT synchronized (which I do already) so that all of my emails and so forth work correctly and my file timestamps get dealt with properly, which means that the "local time" will be wrong for a few weeks -- or else I keep the "local time" correct, which messes up GMT and means that emails and files and so forth get the wrong timestamps, and occasionally time goes backwards an hour and breaks programs.

i know franklin was the person who originally thought of DST -- clearly even smart people can have idea that're not up there with their best. however, aside from old ben's bones having long since been gnawed off, i mean to stake out the person whose idea was to change it now.

'Connected', possibly, but not completely synchronised. Your clocks went forward a week later than ours (although they're going to go back on the same day: 30 Oct). It made it that bit harder to talk to our Walnut Creek office at the end of last March...

It's reached the point where I assume every thing the Republicans pass is really a hidden time bomb, a way to run something so badly that they can justify eliminating it in a few years. Have they decided DST is the next thing on their hit list?

nevermind that i actually think DST is bullshit and if any change should be made to it, it ought to be abolished

No! No! No!

I spit on you for sprouting such obscenities! All right thinking people know Daylight Saving Time RULZ!

I hate, hate, hate getting up in the dark and coming home in the dark in winter. I want Daylight Saving Time all year round. In March, I can hardly wait to switch back, that first evening of light is almost as satisfying as good sex. Just 'cause you live up north where there's no sunlight to speak of in the winter and extra sunlight in summer doesn't mean you should try and meddle with mine! You get Northern Lights sometimes, that should be enough for you. *harumph*

hoever came up with this should be tied to an anthill, covered with honey.

They should be covered in honey and licked into squirming delightedness!

Stop and think. If it's dark when you get up and dark when you come home, no amount of fooling around with daily saving time is going to make any difference. There is only so much light in the day in the winter. You simply need to work fewer hours. :-)

Huh? Sure, there's only so much light in the day in winter, but if one shifts the schedule so that that light happens in the late afternoon after one gets done with work, then it makes a difference. To take an extreme example, even if you only had two hours of daylight, having them from 5pm to 7pm would mean it wouldn't be dark when you came home, assuming normal work hours.

Of course, the better solution in that particular case is probably to take an extra-long lunch break, instead, and enjoy the daylight then.